A92147:955
A treatise of civil policy
A treatise of civil policy: being a resolution of forty three questions concerning prerogative, right and privilege, in reference to the supreme prince and the people. / By Samuel Rutherford professor of divinity of St Andrews in Scotland.A treatise of civil policy: being a resolution of forty three questions concerning prerogative, right and priviledge, in reference to the supream prince and the people. / By Samuel Rutherford professor of divintiy of St Andrews in Scotland.
London, : Printed and are to be sold by Simon Miller at the Star in St Pauls Church-yard near the West end., 1657 i.e. 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Obj. 2. Arnisaeus c. 3. n. 9. We may resist an inferior magistrate. Ergo, we may resist the supreme, it followeth not, for an inferior judge hath a Majesty infiction only, not properly: treason is, or can only be committed against the King, the obligation to inferior judges is only for the prince, the person of none is sacred and inviolable but the Kings.
Obj. 2. Arnisaeus c. 3. n. 9. We may resist an inferior magistrate. Ergo, we may resist the supreame, it followeth not, for an inferiour judge hath a Majesty infiction onely, not properly: treason is, or can onely be committed against the King, the obligation to inferiour judges is onely for the prince, the person of none is sacred and inviolable but the Kings.
Ans. We obey parents, masters, kings, upon this formal ground, because they are Gods deputies, and set over us, not by man, but by God: So that not only are we to obey them because what they command is good and just (such a sort of obedience an equal owes to the counsel of either equal or inferior) but also by virtue of ⟨p. 356⟩the fifth commandment, because of their place of dignity: now this Majesty which is the formal reason of subjection is one and the same in species and nature in King and Constable, and only different gradually in the King and in other judges, and it is denied that there is any incommunicable sanctity in the Kings person which is not in some degree in the inferior judge, all proceedeth from this false ground, that the King and inferior judges differ in nature, which is denied: and treason inferior may be committed against an inferior judge, and it is a fiction that the inferior judge doth not resemble God, as the King doth, yea there is a sacred Majesty in all inferior judges, in the aged, in every superior, wherefore they deserve honour, fear and reverence. Suppose there were no King on earth, as is clear in Scripture. Exod. 20. 12. Levit. 19. 32